


Death Becomes Him

by AlfieTimewolf



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 03, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Amnesia, Blond Oswald Cobblepot, Blond!Oswald, Canon-Typical Violence, In the flesh Inspired, M/M, Memory Loss, Santa Clarita Diet inspired, Slow Burn, Warm Bodies (book) inspired, Zombie, Zombies, Zombies - freeform, iZombie inspired, there's something in the water, zombie!Oswald
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-24 06:44:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17699558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlfieTimewolf/pseuds/AlfieTimewolf
Summary: Gotham is in mourning when the body of their beloved Mayor is found along a riverbank outside of the city not long after being reported missing by his Chief-of-Staff, swiftly collected and brought to the morgue of the GCPD.  While things must continue in his absence, Oswald Cobblepot finds new life breathed into him and wakes up on a cold metal table, but finds that he has no memory of who he is.Who is he? Why is he lying naked in a morgue? How did he get here? He has more questions than answers, and he's determined to find out what happened to himself. He bumps into an old friend, or he tells him he's an old friend, who helps smuggle him out of the GCPD and safety.Jim Gordon isn't sure why he's surprised, this is Gotham after all, the city where no one stays dead for long. He isn't sure how to react when he finds the former kingpin standing in the GCPD locker room after seeing him on the slab only hours before, but he can't exactly bring the risen man up into the bullpen, so he does the only logical thing he can come up with. He smuggles Oswald out and takes him home.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea rattling about my head for months now, and it actually started with a prompt that I read online that went a little something like 'You're lying on a cold metal table in a morgue. And you're awake' and obviously my mind jumped to zombies. 
> 
> I actually hadn't initially intended for this to be a Gotham-related idea, but then a little thought in my head gave me 'what if Ivy never found Oswald and he ended up dying?' and this is basically the byproduct of the prompt and that thought threaded together, so we'll see where this goes together!

_The water was cold around him as he felt himself float to the bottom, his suit jacket snagged against the dirt and the rocks as a weak current caught him, but his waterlogged weight sent him all way down._

_He could still see light from where his body lay, although it was faint as it filtered through the murkiness and fading fast, or was that his sight? The water in front of him was tinged with a brownness he couldn’t place, or maybe it was red… It_ was  _red, and it was spilling out from his gut, but he’d already forgotten the cause of it._

_The last bubbles of air his burning lungs held were escaping too fast, whatever drags of oxygen he was holding wouldn’t last long, and tugging at his bound hands made his muscles ache and heart beat harder, making him leak even more blood. That’s what he was losing, his blood, as well as his consciousness and his will._

_He’d been found out and bested, surely this was just what he deserved for what he did. Whatever he’d done. He should just give in, there was no point in fighting, he wasn’t coming back from this one. He couldn’t kick with one good leg, it wouldn’t make him rise, at best it would push him along._

_Another soft current rocked him as he released the last few bubbles of his air, eyes fluttering shut as he gave into the darkness and let his beloved city take him, he knew he would have rather had it no other way…_

***

He jolted awake with a groan as his brain sloshed around within his skull, but as he continued to wake up and returned to himself, he also noticed a light behind his eyelids. Where was he? Why was he so cold? What was he doing there? Who… Who was he, exactly?

Despite the brightness he knew was waiting for him, he braced himself and opened his eyes. Harsh florescent lights greeted him, forcing him to wince at the sharp pain that shot through his head, something he tried and failed at blinking away.

Whatever he was lying on was cold and hard beneath him, but it was also smooth and reminded him of some sort of metal. That couldn’t be right, that didn’t make any sense.

He slowly gathered the strength to push himself up into a sitting position, his attention suddenly drawn to the stark white sheet that slid down his bare chest and pooled around his waist. That was a little weird, but he didn’t really think anything of it. At least, not until he ran a slender hand down his front and felt the raised skin beneath his calloused fingertips.

Steeling himself, he looked down and was horrified to find a long scar that stretched from his collarbones to just above his naval; it was a cleanly sewn together Y-incision, but the black thread keeping him together stuck out grotesquely against his pale complexion.

No, no, this couldn’t be happening to him, that had to be wrong!

Glancing around, he realised that he was currently sitting in some sort of autopsy room. He was going to need to find out why he knew what an autopsy room looked like, but that was a question for a much later date.

He tore the sheet off of himself and leapt gracelessly from the table, only to have his legs give out on him and he squawked as he collapsed in a heap on the rough ground. He hissed in pain as he grasped his swollen right ankle, rolling over and allowing himself to cry until the pain subsided.

His chest heaved as he forcefully sucked in air, ignoring the sensation of the stiff thread keeping his wound together. The stitching was tight, but he didn’t want to push his luck and have his innards spill out all over the floor. He’d rather keep them where they belonged.

He wriggled his toes to see if there was any lingering pain; there was, but he could manage it. The exercise brought something else to his attention, a small tag attached to one of his big toes, it dangled teasingly against the sole of his foot.

Reaching down and snagging it off, he hoped it would give him some answers, maybe tell him exactly who he was – anything would be great. He paused, took another breath, and flipped over the tag.

_‘Cobblepot, Oswald’_

Was that him? It sounded right. It _felt_ right. Oswald Cobblepot, finally something helpful. A name was a start.

It had everything on it, his height; weight; date of birth, date of… Death? That couldn’t be right, he clearly wasn’t dead, it had to be some sort of mistake.

Oswald crawled back over to the table and used the edge of it to pull himself back onto his feet, giving himself time to adjust his weight before limping awkwardly over to grab a white lab coat to cover up his injuries and nakedness.

He needed to figure out where he was, but first, maybe a change of clothes.

Besides the lab coat, there wasn’t much else he could put on, so he made his exit from the morgue, hobbling as quickly and as quietly as he could.

Oswald was more than a little confused at the fact that wherever he was felt almost… Familiar, which didn’t make much sense, but he already knew so little that he held onto this strange instinct.

The murmur of several voices could be heard above him, though he didn’t get the feeling that he should be heading towards them. The halls were cold and empty as he limped down them, balancing against the walls as he searched for for either a way out or some proper clothes.

It wasn't long before the (re)animated man found himself in some sort of locker room, and he wasted no time in seeing which ones were unlocked. The first two he had no luck with, but he gave the third one a hard tug and it popped open; a few shirts and an old pair of socks that he couldn’t stop himself from turning his nose up at.

Deodorant, more socks; more shirts; a pair of briefs (that’s where he drew the line); a few toothbrushes, and slacks that were all too big on him. Oh, and a pack of cheap (but unused) boxers.

Still mindful of his stitches, he pulled on an undershirt with a navy dress shirt over it. He begrudgingly took a pair of the cheap feeling boxers, pairing them with some even cheaper feeling socks, and some dark grey slacks that he needed to cuff the bottoms of the legs of to pull his look together.

There. He felt less like a cadaver and more like a human, or he did until he caught sight of his ghostly reflection across the room.

Stumbling over to the mirror, Oswald grasped the edges of the sink beneath it for balance as he stared at himself. He knew his skin was practically translucent, but it seemed stranger on his face, he still looked so…. Dead. He grit his teeth, stomach churning at the mere thought he was anything but alive.

His eyes were a sharp, piercing blue and surrounded with dark circles, the skin almost appearing purple beneath the harsh light overhead. His hair was almost fluffy, sticking up at odd angles, and a pale blond that fit his stark complexion. Besides the obvious, his reflecting didn’t feel like him, there was just something off that he couldn’t place.

Oswald tensed as he heard the telltale squeak of the door behind him, holding his breath as he took in the newcomer in the mirror. He was dressed in a black suit with a matching tie, he noted the white shirt the other wore had red staining on the cuffs and collar, but he caught the glimpse of a badge at his hip.

“Put your hands above your head and turn around slowly.” The stranger’s voice barked, drawing his gun warningly and pointing it at him.

He did just that, arms flying up as he bowed his head, hopping slightly as he obeyed and turned around to face the officer. He took a few shallow breaths as he clenched his eyes shut, keeping his head down and doing his best to not provoke the other.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” The brunet growled, his gun lowering slightly as he took a step away from the doorway.

“I-I don’t know,” Oswald confessed, raising his head and staring at the officer with pleading eyes, hoping to somehow convey his situation. “I woke up in the morgue, I don’t know how I got there. I promise I don’t! I don’t even know where here is!”

He sounded like he was begging to his own ears, and he knew he was, the last thing he wanted right now was to be shot. ‘ _Again_ ’ a voice whispered in his head, but he ignored it.

“… Oswald?"


	2. Chapter 2

Jim had never felt great about the situation at City Hall, even the whole campaign had been uncomfortably well organised, which he supposed was all Nygma’s doing. Their phones had been ringing off the hook with concerned citizens when people started catching sight of the cop killer, but a brief check with Arkham let them know that he had in fact been legally released.

No one had been happy to hear that. In fact, most of the department would have preferred he’d busted out, at least that way they could have had the satisfaction of throwing him back in.

Much to his chagrin, he couldn’t deny that Gotham was in fact fairing well with the ‘former criminal’ in the position of mayor, certainly better than when it had been under his predecessor’s care. He might not have been a cop at the beginning of his campaign for mayor, and while he could see how significantly safer the streets and citizens were, he wasn’t fooled. Of course the place was quiet (at least for Gotham), crime would be down when you controlled the criminals, it was only logical.

Mayor of Gotham and Kingpin of the Underworld, power and money and influence, everything he knew Oswald had always wanted. He was the man with it all right now.

It really shouldn’t have eaten at him when it was reported that the mayor was sick after his interview with Margaret Hearst, he should have done what everyone else had and just think he was hiding from the backlash of his ‘to hell with the people’ comment. If it had been anyone else, he wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but this wasn’t just anyone, this was Oswald Cobblepot. The man would have been doing everything in his power to get the people back on his side, and neither sickness or embarrassment would have stopped him.

Jim couldn’t say he was surprised when the sick mayor became a missing mayor a week later, with Nygma being a useless witness, apparently very distraught at his employer’s disappearance Despite sharing a living space, the Van Dahl manor, he hadn’t heard a thing; no breaking and entering; no struggle, nothing.

A team had been set up a few days later in order to find the official elective, the goings on at City Hall temporarily on hold. It couldn’t be that way forever, and the longer it took them to find the missing mayor, the more likely it was that someone else would be appointed to fill his large shows.

Gotham paused the morning a body was reported on the outskirts of the city a few months later, waterlogged and washed up on a riverbank, surrounded by empty bottles and other trash. A body obviously wasn’t enough, they were a dime a dozen, but the body of former Mayor Oswald Cobblepot was.

Jim didn’t go to the scene, he couldn’t, not when he had his own problems to deal with. The discovered remains of an AWOL mayor solved a missing person’s case, and he couldn’t let himself get distracted, not when he knew how close he was to figuring out who the Court of Owls was. He had his estranged uncle, Frank Gordon, to deal with as well. It was the last thing he needed, but at least the other had been able to give him some solid answers.

He was sat behind his desk when he heard from some of the other officers down in the bullpen that Oswald’s body had made it to the morgue, the thought of the man actually being dead weighed heavily in his chest, it felt like the end of an era. He decided to give it an hour before he went to see the body, he at least owed the other a goodbye, so he dove into the file he had on Michael Ness, the drunk driver who had killed his father, but there was something not right about the picture he was painting.

The black body bag was still lying on the autopsy table when he walked in, making him pause and rethink the shoddy farewell speech he’d planned on the way down. There would surely be an uproar from some citizens if there wasn’t justice for their once beloved mayor, so there must have been high expectations for a post-mortem to find out what had finally ended him.

He turned and left before anyone spotted him.

Jim didn’t need prompting to leave the precinct, but his a well timed text from his uncle to meet made the perfect excuse. He felt uneasy at being asked to go to his father’s grave, somewhere he hadn’t been to in a long time.

‘ _PETER GORDON. BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER’_ the headstone read, making him wonder what his own would say when his time came as he stared at the carved letters.

“Why here?” Jim asked, his discomfort obvious.

“It’s public, open,” his uncle replied honestly after a few moments. “Easy to spot if anyone’s watching us.”

“The driver who hit my father’s car that night wasn’t drunk,” he found himself saying, because besides Harvey, he really didn’t have anyone else to talk to about this. “I think he did it on purpose, and someone made it look like an accident.”

Frank confirmed his suspicions, something like that was child’s play to set up for the Court. What he hadn’t expected was the new development of a weapon heading for the city, something they intended to use to ‘cleanse’ Gotham, like they’d apparently done twice before.

His uncle didn’t linger, and neither did he, but he almost wished he had. He ended up bumping into Lee, and he apologised again, something he knew he’d probably be doing every time they talked; she was understandably not keen to stick around to chat. He tried not to, but he watched her walk away, the running of his phone made for a welcomed distraction.

According to Harvey, Michael Ness had been a career scumbag with countless charges of grand theft auto; burglaries, and a long list on unpaid speeding tickets. That was all irrelevant compared to the detail that a high-priced lawyer, the one that got Ness his plea, had been paid for by Carmine Falcone.

Jim didn’t waste any time confronting the mobster, who divulged that he only had the utmost respect for the late DA, unlike the son he’d left behind. It stung, but his anger wouldn’t let that effect him. The gangster admitted to paying the lawyer, but he didn’t take credit for the hit, the name Falcone gave him made his blood run cold.

It was surprisingly easy to break into his uncle’s apartment, using a few skills he’d picked up as a bounty hunter to leave the front door undamaged. All he had to do was lie and wait, like a tiger biding its time for its next meal to appear.

An hour passed silently, then just as the second hour was coming up, the front door was unlocked and pushed open; he sprang soundlessly to his feet with his gun in hand, ready to pull it on the traitor.

He felt sick as the listened to the other try and justify the murder off his father, of his own brother, and he felt the next step was obvious. The decision to arrest Frank Gordon came easily, but actually doing it proved to be a little harder in practice, earning him a head-butt and a bottle across the temple.

Dock 9C, as cryptic as he would expect, and then he was alone. He couldn’t go snooping around the docks, not with the Court breathing down his neck; he had the perfect person in mind, and he was prepared to pay the price.

Finally back at the precinct, Jim did his best to fill his partner in about what was going on, getting to the bit with the mysterious dock 9C and his deal with Barbara before Harvey pointed out the blood on his collar. Right, from his nose. At least he had a spare down in the locker room, or he thought he did.

Jim loosened his tie on the way, undoing his top two buttons and running a hand through his dishevelled hair thoughtfully. There was no rest for the wicked.

How true his thought was as he pushed the door open and paused at the threshold, looking around with raised brows at all the opened lockers, bits of discarded clothing (and a lab coat) littered the floor. What the hell was going on?

A short figure stood with their back to him by the sink on the far side, and instinctively knew something was wrong. They were wearing rumpled and clearly stolen clothes, pilfered and compiled from all the lockers then, that explained the mess.

“Put your hands above your head and turn around slowly.” Jim barked at the stranger, drawing his gun immediately and pointing it towards the intruder. This was the last thing he needed right now, a trespasser.

The blond did as he was told and raised his arms, head bowed as he turned to face him, the long sleeves sliding to pool at the man’s elbows. All the clothes were ill-fitting on the lithe thief, everything hanging loosely from him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” He growled after a moment, taking a step further into the room. Had the stranger been looking for something other than clothes, or was he just one of Gotham’s many homeless chancing it?

“I-I don’t know,” the stutter refocused him, but at the same time had him reeling, because he recognised that high pitched voice, and it was impossible. “I woke up in the morgue, I don’t know how I got here. I promise I don’t! I don’t even know where _here_ is!”

Jim was thrown into his memories, back to the day he was forced to walk a snivelling, bleeding, limping little umbrella boy down a pier at the edge of Gotham to execute him. He had come to the corrupt city with a plan to try and clean it up, but he hadn’t known the extent of the corruption until he was right in the middle of it.

Surely this was a hallucination, or an uncanny lookalike. This couldn’t be the former king of Gotham, the criminal had been pronounced dead at the scene, had been dead for months according to the medical examiner.

“… Oswald?” Jim couldn’t stop himself from gasping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting to the fun zombie stuff, I promise, but I felt like it was better to give Jim some context instead of jumping straight into the crazy.

**Author's Note:**

> Is this my excuse to write both a blond and undead Oswald? Yes, yes it is. This is completely self-indulgent and it's going to get a little gory in the future, so even more tags are due to be added when I get to that.


End file.
